1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to document handling equipment including systems for feeding and transporting documents.
2. Background Art
A typical system for feeding and transporting documents includes a feeder in the document feeding portion of the system, and a series of roller pairs or belts in the document transporting portion of the system. In the feeding portion of the system, the feeder acts to separate and feed documents singly, in order, from a stack. In the transporting portion of the system, the roller pairs and/or belts convey the documents, one at a time, through a track past other processing devices such as readers, printers, and sorters that perform operations on the documents. The feeder is typically a feed wheel, but may take other forms. Further, the components in the transporting portion of the system may take a variety of forms. An existing document feeder is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,199,854. That patent describes a document feeder with a variable speed separator.
In existing systems for feeding and transporting documents, operations that depend on the position of the document are generally performed in the transport stage, or transporting portion of the system. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,848,784 describes a document separation apparatus. That patent describes the downstream acceleration/deceleration of documents with pinch rollers to adjust document spacing. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,419,546; 5,437,375; 5,439,506; 5,509,648; 5,671,919; and 5,908,191 describe examples of other document operations.
Document handling equipment, like but not limited to, check sorters and postal letter sorters requires periodic removal of documents along the document path. The removal of documents is necessary due to jams caused by ripped or torn edges, staples, mutilated documents, rubber bands, folded edges and so on.
Document handling equipment also requires accessibility to the track for cleaning, adjustment and maintenance purposes. This could include debris removal and cleaning or adjusting of devices in the document track, such as sensors, magnetic ink character readers, optical encoder devices, image camera glass, drive and pinch rollers and the like.
The current art typically has a document track with drive rollers and pinch rollers positioned along the document path to propel the document down the track. The document sidewalls are usually rigid and non-movable. When the document stops, jams or if devices positioned within the track need maintenance, this creates a difficult recovery or maintenance environment due to the lack of accessibility, and creates significant downtime for operations. The non-accessible track configurations reduce throughput of documents due to the difficulty and time spent in document removal and maintenance.
The typical document track is narrow and deep, typically with only the top portion of a document visible. Document removal in the current state of the art includes levers and knobs to retract pinch rollers for assisting document removal. This feature helps, but does not address hard document jams, maintenance, cleaning and debris removal. The same is true for sidewalls that pivot. Document track sidewalls that pivot are helpful, but do not give complete accessibility to the document track and devices. Tools such as thin wands are needed for cleaning and debris removal in the current state of the art, and visibility into the document track is difficult, which makes document clearing, cleaning, and adjustments difficult and costly. Other solutions include removable track walls, which do give good access to the document track, but removal of track walls takes time and tools are required for removal. Removable track walls, especially those with electronic devices imbedded into the walls (like sensors) are at risk for damage during multiple removals.
Covers and lids are necessary for protection of machine operators and are required by regulatory agencies, and are usually necessary for acoustical requirements and sometimes for electromagnetic interference protection. These covers may have to be opened to gain access for document removal or for access to levers, cams, pivots or any other devices necessary to remove documents or to perform operator maintenance. Cover and lid removal are time consuming and thus impact productive operations.
Additional background information may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,630,815.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for an improved mechanism for providing access to the track in a document processing system.